Posted by Rob, Thursday, August 24, 2006 3:17 PM

I've been data entering magazines all week - not so fun skate nerd work. Captain Corporate needs that to tell you who the top 25 most marketable dudes in the sketchy skateboard industry are for August 2006. Danny Fuenzalida won it this month. He had a lot of coverage in Slap, and interview in Thrasher and a ton of ads. Tom Penny is Chief Chill Shot and has the most ad coverage for the month. Dan Zaslavsky got the most photography exposure this month. So far this year, no orientals have taken the top spot. Serious stereotypes are at stake here. Put down the chopsticks and get on the shutter. You can check the reports yourself here: Captain Corporate's Coverage Patrol.

All joking about corporate crap aside, listen kiddies, the sketchy skateboard industry is more corporate and political than you can possibly imagine. Here’s a newsflash in case the obvious isn’t that obvious to you. All skateboard companies, no matter how large or small, are a business and a corporation and are in it to make money and pull out when it's not making money (Rasa Libre, The Firm, 88, etc.), just like a large non-skate company would do. Don’t let the old bitter skateboarding grown ups tell you what you can and can’t buy or who you should or shouldn't support. Buy what you want. Just spend your money on whatever you think is cool and everything will be fine. That’s a big part of what makes skateboarding what it is. Even if everyone is sponsored by Microsoft and IBM, they still can’t change what that simple piece of wood and some wheels really means to us when you take away the economics required for people to make a living skateboarding instead of doing it just for fun and flipping burgers to pay bills. I sure am babbling a lot - I'm trying to avoid doing real work.